Pupil Premium
Background
The Academy is located in an area of high social deprivation and has a high percentage of pupils who are eligible for free school meals (FSM), which brings some complex challenges. One of thend the subsequent challenges faced. Common barriers for disadvantaged children can be less support at home, weak language and literacy skills, lack of confidence, more frequent behaviour difficulties and attendance/punctuality issues. There may also be complex family/safeguarding situations that prevent children from flourishing. The challenges will be varied, it is therefore important to see and treat every child as an individual in their own right. We know that our investment in our Pastoral Support Team has supported many vulnerable children and families, ensuring that the children remain in school and thrive both academically and socially.
Our key objective in using PPG is to narrow the gap between pupil groups. Through targeted interventions, we are working to eliminate barriers to learning and progress. For children who start school with low attainment on entry, our aim is to ensure that they make accelerated progress in order to reach age related expectations and beyond as they move through the Academy. We know that by the end of their time with us our children are above the national average in terms of their value added progress. However, we also know that children’s progress is negatively affected if they are not in school on time every day. To this end our Attendance and Families’ Officer works with targeted families to improve their children’s attendance, and we set ourselves challenging targets for attendance.
We have high aspirations and ambitions for our children and believe that no child should be left behind. Pupil premium makes up a large proportion of our budget and we are committed to ensuring it is spent to maximum effect. Every term we account for the grant to our Academy Council and to Oasis Community Learning, and at the end of each academic year we analyse the impact and success of current interventions before deciding how the grant will be spent in the following year. You can view a copy of the Pupil Premium Grant Expenditure Report for the current years below.